This invention relates to books and the like; and more particularly, to books and the like utilized by a person or persons to tell or relate a story to another person or group of persons. In particular, this invention relates to a "do-it-yourself" storytelling book which allows a parent, child or teacher to create their own storytelling book which is specially adapted to allow the creator to relate a story to another person or group of persons.
Many people read stories from books to other people; or tell or describe a story that may be illustrated in a book to one or more other people. Quite often the listener or person or persons to whom the story is being told or read is relatively young, maybe too young to know how to read; and the storyteller or reader is older, possibly a parent, older sibling or relative, or a teacher. There are many reasons to tell stories and/or read to young children. Storytelling and reading serve to occupy the child's time and facilitate teaching the child to recognize letters, words, objects, persons, places, colors, things and the like. In time, storytelling and reading will help the child learn to read themselves and to develop an imagination. Once this facility is developed, a child may want to create his or her own storytelling book.
Thus, books and other things may often combine graphic illustrations, in color in many instances, and related words to provide a more interesting experience for the young child. Even toys, such as that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,433,540 issued on Dec. 30, 1947 to J. H. Wright for Humpty Dumpty Break-Up Toy may be formed graphically and with words. However, such relatively bulky items are more suitable to hand-type game activity than to person-to-person storytelling and may, in fact, distract the child to whom the story is being read or told and thus interfere with the reading or storytelling. Graphics and words are also combined on cards to provide a learning experience in an interactive setting. The Game Cards of U.S. Pat. No. 1,263,664 issued on Apr. 23, 1918 to T. E. Hanada, for example, shows sets of game cards with pictures of persons on one side of the card and sayings on the other side of the card related to the person pictured on the card. However, cards quite often get separated from the deck, and possibly lost and are often not in any predetermined order. Thus, such card games are not suitable for book type reading and/or storytelling.
It is also known to associate a set of cards with a device or machine so that one person may successively or otherwise display the cards for viewing by another person, usually in a testing situation. However, such arrangements, as shown for example in U.S. Pat. No. 1,385,623 issued on Jul. 26, 1921 to J. L. Kellogg for Kindergarten Apparatus; in U.S. Pat. No. 3,417,490 issued on Dec. 24, 1968 to R. G. Chuy et al for Flash Card Apparatus; in U.S. Pat. No. 3,263,347 issued on Aug. 2, 1966 to L. A. McCutcheon for Educational And Recreational Lesson-Aids And Games With Easel; and in U.S. Pat. No. 3,562,923 issued on Feb. 16, 1971 to R. G. Chuy et al for Educational Aid Viewing Apparatus, require the use of both a set of cards and a machine or device to position and move the cards and thus add to the cost and complexity of utilizing the cards and also present cards which do not tell a story or facilitate telling a story and do so in an environment which is not necessarily conducive to story telling or reading.
Flash card type arrangements are also provided for use in book form as well as the device and machine set-ups described above. One such book form use is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,950,167 issued on Aug. 21, 1990 to J. A. Harris for Visual Detail Perception Test Kit And Methods Of Use wherein cards, or large pages, are mounted in a loose-leaf type binder so that one viewer, in this case a tester, can utilize the indicia on one page while the other viewer, the testee, can utilize the indicia on the corresponding next, opposite, or facing page. While the indicia on each set of cooperating pages in the Harris test kit are related, they do not show, teach or even suggest a story that is to be read by one party to another. The Harris test kit is just that; a test kit and nothing more. Similarly, the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery by Teaching Resources Corporation utilizes a bound book-type holder for successive cards or pages so as to present a first page with a graphic and a related but incomplete sentence to a test taker and a second page with a substantially identical graphic and the same incomplete sentence to a tester and with teaching aids on the testers page. This test kit is also a compilation of separate and distinct two-page sets--each presenting a test but not cooperating with each other to do any more than present separate and distinct test sets.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,563,582 issued on Dec. 1, 1925 to J. E. McDade for Silent Reading Story Illustrating Arrangement presents a storybook and related base upon which a party, the listener or reader, may set up graphics related to the story of the book. The McDade device thus requires a book, a number of cut-outs and a base constructed to receive the cut-outs. The arrangement is relatively cumbersome and bulky, and the cut-outs may be easily lost. In U.S. Pat. No. 1,405,134 issued on Jan. 31, 1922 to C. R. Hoyme for Book there is shown a bound book with printed text on one page and an open top pocket on the facing page. A cut-out illustration is received in the pocket. Here again, the cut-out illustration, being separate and relatively thick to facilitate its removal from the pocket for use, may be lost thus defeating the purpose of book text and illustration. In addition, the relative thickness of the illustration and its pocket renders the book relatively thick and bulky for a given size story. In addition, neither the McDade book nor the Hoyme book are conducive for easy storytelling and reading by one person, preferably an adult, to another person or a young child. More importantly, the removal of items from the Hoyme book and the setting up of the McDade Scene may so distract the listener as to exasperate the storyteller or reader.
Similarly, while certain of the kits and books known in the prior art have separate cards as part of the overall apparatus, none of this prior art shows arranging a series of pages by insertion in a loose-leaf-type holder in such a fashion that a parent, child or teacher can create his or her own storytelling book which is specially adapted to allow the creator to relate a story to another person or group of persons.